VB Migration

Tag: spyware

  • Opposition activists in Asia and Africa targeted by spyware developed by Western companies

    Mozilla angry about use of its brand and logo. A new report has been released on the commercialization of digital spying, which thoroughly analyses a number of pieces of spyware developed by Western companies and used to target opposition activists in various countries in Africa and Asia. CitizenLab , a research institute linked to the…

  • UK to adopt Euro police hacking scheme

    Remote search and cyber patrol plans approved. The UK Home Office has signed up to a European initiative, proposed in November, to grant police forces greater powers to hack into computers and monitor internet traffic in search of incriminating evidence. The UK police already admits to engaging in cyber-espionage on occasion, in some cases with…

  • Spyware gang sneaks millions from SA government

    32 arrested but South Africa theft scam thought to be ongoing. An orchestrated series of spyware infiltrations has netted scammers over £12.8 million ($24.7 million) from the South African government, and thefts continue to take place despite the arrests of 32 suspects on 86 separate charges, according to local reports. Government officials told local news…

  • Complex attack targets Better Business Bureau

    Sophisticated scam uses personalised mails, real site redirects. A highly sophisticated email phishing scam is using a redirection flaw in the website of the Better Business Bureau (BBB) to lead victims to install spyware. The emails making contact with potential victims are highly targeted, with personalised information and links to the genuine BBB site to…

  • Usual fare for holiday season

    Storm ecards and social site spyware mark unsurprising year end. With large portions of the globe celebrating various festivals over the past few weeks, an expected upsurge in malware attacks has been seen, including the now inevitable wave of emails from the ‘Storm’ worm attack (which targeted most important festivals in the past year), supplemented…

  • Zero-day exploit for Japanese word processor Ichitaro

    Trend Micro notes increase in regionally targeted attacks as trojan becomes latest to exploit a Ichitaro flaw. A trojan has been found to be exploiting a buffer overflow vulnerability in popular Japanese word processing package Ichitaro . According to analysts at Trend Micro a backdoor trojan is installed when a malicious .JTD file is opened…

  • FTC demands more power against spyware

    Prosecutions and fines needed to deter badware makers. Representatives of the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the consumer protection body which has seen some success in the past in bringing spammers to justice, have called for greater powers to bring down makers of malicious spyware. At a spyware forum in Washington, D.C. earlier this week,…

  • Spyware maker Direct Revenue closes doors

    Notorious company forced out of business by legal actions. After numerous lawsuits and fines, adware and spyware maker Direct Revenue is no more. The firm behind a swathe of intrusive and malicious software products has ceased trading thanks to cases brought by New York State and the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) challenging its devious…

  • Malware and phishing cost US users $7 billion in two years

    Survey finds 1 in 4 risk of being hit by viruses, spyware and scams. US consumer watchdog Consumer Reports has unveiled its annual ‘State of the Net’ study, showing serious numbers being affected by viruses, spyware and online scams. The survey of over 2,000 US households found that 38% had been hit by a virus…

  • Battle over Blackberry spyware threat

    Spy tool for popular device claims to be legitimate. The expansion of the FlexiSpy mobile device snooping software, originally available only for the Symbian platform but with versions for both Windows Mobile and Blackberry released in May, has caused a war of words between the software maker and security vendor F-Secure . While the maker,…